Japanese IT systems provider Fujitsu says India will be its focus market for the

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coming years. The company’s products of German-Japanese engineering acumen are gaining ground in the country as the only alternative in the segment that is dominated by Americans, a senior company official said.

“Internally, we call it the Fujitsu 2.0 in India,” Pallab Talukdar, chief executive officer of Fujitsu India, told Financial Chronicle. “We were present in the country through our joint venture with the RPG group but exited the firm in 2007 and Fujitsu’s journey in India ended. However, we reentered in 2009 on our own. The parent company is now primarily focusing on developing countries such as India. They decided to penetrate the markets with as much local management and talent as possible.”

In its first attempt, Fujitsu arrived in India through Zensar Technologies with over 29 per cent stake in the company. RPG bought out the shares through its group company Jubilee Investment and Industries.

The $5-billion company operates across the server, storage, solutions and services segments. It competes with the likes of IBM, HP and Dell.

“Over the last two years, we were steadying our base in India. We added over 200 customers in the last 18 months to 24 months primarily through references, without much marketing or brand building. However, we have internally attained a critical mass and have felt the need to market our products better to catch up with competition,” he added.

More than 85 per cent of the company’s sales happen through channel partners and the first step in brand building would be to educate partners on the company’s solutions, Talukdar said. It has over 40 partners in the country. Over 80 per cent of its customers are in the mid-market segment.

“We were late entrants into the market and realise that it would be tough to capture market share in the large enterprises segment. Our target is medium to large businesses and government organisations. Fujitsu’s focus verticals include manufacturing, government and premier educational institutions such as the IITs,” he added.

World over Fujitsu is in the fifth position or below in various product segments in which it operates, with less than 10 per cent market share.